


Amnesia Arena

by Vintage (sour_gummies)



Category: Avengers Arena, Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, F/M, M/M, Memory Loss, Multi, Non-Chronological, Other, Parody, Slice of Life, Soap Opera
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-15
Updated: 2013-11-17
Packaged: 2018-01-01 16:21:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1045978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sour_gummies/pseuds/Vintage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For his latest incarnation of Murderworld, Arcade had the brilliant idea to create an element of unpredictability by starting the contestants off with a blank slate: what better way to ensure the super-kids’ pesky allegiances and friendships wouldn't get in the way, than by erasing all their memories?</p><p>Of course, he never counted on becoming so engrossed in his contestants’ interpersonal drama that he’d put off the game itself until the ensuing soap opera they created had finished playing out. These kids are an absolute riot! Arcade has high hopes that they'll soon begin to kill one another off, without his interfering at all...now wouldn’t <i>that</i> be something to rub in the Avengers’ faces?</p><p>OR:</p><p>A rewrite of Avengers Arena, but with a few changes—namely, there is no death match, and all the characters have had their memories erased. Slice-of-life island shenanigans to ensue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Start Over

**DAY 1**

“Ahem...wake up.

“Don’t bother trying to move or talk. You’ve been sleeping while I got you all cleaned and prepped. Today is a very special day, after all...

“You’re probably wondering who you are. What you’re doing here. Dangling up there with a bunch of other teenagers who are just as confused and terrified as you are.”

_RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE_

“Ooh...now there’s molten rock lava?

“I’d like to think there’d be **screaming** if I let you. But it’s better that you can’t. I have a lot of things to explain in a short amount of time, and I can’t have any of you teenage superheroes interrupting me while I try to explain the rules of your new life.

“Who is the badass boogeyman with the godlike powers and the volcano elevator? And did he say _teenage superheroes?_ Now who could they be?

“Of course you wouldn’t know. Then again, maybe you would know of _me_ , at least—the only memories I let you keep are the ones that have nothing to do with you personally. I wanted to add an element of unpredictability to things this time around. See who all my contestants really are without the baggage from the past weighing them down. Let the real you out, without having to worry about what anyone else will think. The **you** you keep crammed down deep where nobody else can see.

“For anyone who guessed...

“I am Arcade. And make no mistake, children, there’s a reason I don’t wear a mask with my pretty white suit like some _other_ villains you might remember. There are no villains in Murderworld—that’s where you are, by the way. There’s only the sixteen of you here, and I am your **god**. I control your motor functions, your bodies, even your breathing if I so choose. I hung you from my ceiling.

“My world is where you have been born again, and where you shall meet your end.

“Don’t bother trying to escape. There’s no leaving Murderworld once you’re in. At least, not for most of you.

“But we’ll get into that later. As far as you’re concerned right now, you just need to understand that _is_ no outside world, and no means of reaching it even if there were. You’re completely cut off. Nobody is coming to get you. Trust me, even if they knew—or cared—who you were, they’d have no idea where to look.

“You want food? You want water? Medicine? It’s all here, but you have to fight for it. There might not be enough for everyone, and besides, it’s not like you know anyone else stuck in here floating in the sky with you. If you ever did, those memories are all mine now.

“Better to get a fresh start, I always say. For you _and_ for me. ‘Every man for himself’ is the name of the game here. You can try to make some new friends if you want, but there’s really no point to it. Like I said before, once the game _really_ gets underway, the less friends you have, the better. Look around. How many of these people would you trust with your life? For all you know, they could be cold-blooded killers! Then again, so could you...

“Those of you who have been paying attention will notice the little holo-screens in front of you with your names or aliases projected on them. That’s all you get. Any other information is strictly classified for now. Makes it more interesting, don’t you think?

“Some of you are probably thinking _why me?_ There’s a lot of different reasons. Fate. Luck of the draw. My own sick amusement. I like to make a game with other people’s lives, and you’re this week’s lucky winners. It doesn’t really matter why.

“What matters is that all of you have something that makes you special. Something unique, and highly entertaining. Your powers and abilities may or may not be obvious right off the bat, but for your own sake I _do_ hope you figure it out soon. If you want to survive long enough to play the game, that is.

“I’d really love to stay and chat a little longer, but I think it’s high time you got acquainted with all the people you’ll be spending the rest of your lives with! And you’d better not make it boring. The more bored I am, the sooner the game starts.

“And when the game starts, you all start _dying_. So enjoy your little reprieve while it lasts.

“I’ll leave the sixteen of you to it.”

He snaps his fingers and disappears.

The figures hovering in the air abruptly drop out of it—some gracefully, some not. All sixteen land on the ground without getting hurt.

Then they start to get up. Stand. Look at one other, warily. Total silence reigns in the circle for a long, tense moment.

Nobody has a goddamn clue what happens next.


	2. Pointless

 

**DAY 1  
**

**45 MINUTES AFTER ARCADE’S WELCOME SPEECH**

A small alcove crumbled out from shallow cracks in the steep rock walls along the cliff face is not what X-23 would deem an ideal shelter, either from the icy elements or the Mark V Sentinel that will doubtless pursue her and Juston here as soon as it’s completed its repairs. The inadequacy of the location and its security festers at the corners of her mind, like a badly healed wound in need of being reopened, but there’s nothing X-23 can do now to change it.

Juston can’t be moved any farther up the mountain in his current condition—at least, not without risking more damage to his broken bones than X-23 can attend to, with the limited medical knowledge she has. The only way to relocate somewhere more optimal would be to disregard Juston’s health and safety in the process, or else simply abandon him. For the hundredth time, X-23 wonders why she doesn’t do exactly that.

Juston serves no purpose to her survival. He seems to have few, if any, viable skills, and the only thing that sets him apart from an ordinary human that X-23 has seen is that Juston happens to be the primary target of a weaponized, mutant-hunting Sentinel. She doesn’t know him personally at all and doesn’t think she desires to. Perhaps she knew Juston once, before the villain called Arcade stole the memories of whatever life X-23 and the other captives had before they awoke in Murderworld.

But such memories have no bearing on her current predicament, and the smart thing for X-23 to do for her own safety would undoubtedly be leaving Juston at the mercy of the genocidal robot when it inevitably returns.

However, for whatever reason, X-23 already knows she won’t. She didn’t leave the first time, when Juston was trapped at the mercy of the Sentinel that cut off his escape on all sides every time he tried to run. Her intention at the time had been to watch from a distance, to not get involved with any of the other captives in the arena until she had a better idea of where they stood in terms of their threat level to her. But when the Sentinel’s robotic hand reached down to seize Juston, X-23 ran out of hiding and attacked.

The ensuing fight had left her with more wounds than most people in her position would hope to survive, but the discovery of her mutant healing factor and adamantium claws had been well worth any temporary suffering. The battle had certainly been instructive in unraveling some of the mysteries behind X-23’s unknown capabilities. If Sentinel came away from their encounter with injuries enough to be repaired in a timely fashion, so too did X-23.

Juston, however has no healing factor or capability of self-repair—the most X-23 can do for him in the short-term is to set his broken leg and make a splint, shredding the padded material of his vest and one of his pant legs in order to wrap around the fracture and tie it securely. Even though she’s surmised the break to be no more than a hairline crack, with none of the bones of his lower leg jostled out of place, he still cries and clenches his teeth the entire time she works on his bandaging. More than once, his sobbing becomes so loud that X-23 thinks she’s done something inadvertently to exacerbate the injury. He assures her between sobs that it’s not her fault, he just has a lower pain tolerance than most guys his age really ought to

That low tolerance apparently pertains to the temperature as well, as X-23 discovers when she returns from clearing her tracks away from the snow bank at the cliff base. She ducks into the alcove to find Juston shivering violently in place, where he’s laid upright against the stone wall to rest. His arms are wrapped tightly around himself and his good leg is pulled as close to his body as he can get in the cramped space, though it comes at the cost of the straight angle of his other leg. X-23 moves closer, shaking her head and pointing at the splint.  
  
“You are aggravating your injury by sitting like that. Try not to shiver so hard, or the break will worsen,” X-23 tells him flatly in her habitual clipped tone of voice. “The cold is not enough to be dangerous in such a closed space, unless you go into shock. Try to stay focused on your surroundings and avoid panicking at all costs.”

“I’m _trying_!” he suddenly shrieked, his whole body spasming from the force of his words. The movement was so violent and unexpected compared to his earlier subdued shivering that X-23 bristled instinctively in response, unsheathing her claws in a flash of metal.

Predictably, Juston reacted to that with terror. His eyes widened, pupils constricting to nothing, and his whole body lurched away from X-23 to flatten itself against the crumbling stone wall behind him. The movement elicited another cringing shout of pain immediately after, and X-23 hastily retracted her claws, backing off with her posture forcibly relaxed to convey that she didn’t mean him any harm.

“ _Calm down_ ,” she said authoritatively, moving closer, her movements slowly enough not to spook him again. “Stop moving at once, or you will damage yourself. It was only a reflex—I will not do it again, I promise you. I have no intention of doing anything intentionally to harm you, Juston.”

He let out a ragged sob in response. Fingers shaking madly, Juston tried to reach with one arm for his broken leg, but X-23 pinned his hand to the floor to keep him from touching the splint.

“Stop that,” she said. “You are going to make it worse.”

“It _hurts_ ,” he moaned, shaking all over with uncontrollable anger, fear, and agony. “It hurts so _bad_ and the cold only makes it worse...c-can’t you do something about it? P-P- _Please_. I’m so damn c-cold.”

She thought, fleetingly, of the risks of building a fire. Banking one would be difficult in such a closed space, and the air quality of their breathable oxygen would suffer. Any smoke would make their hiding place easier to spot from a distance. Leaving the alcove to gather wood and other materials would make her an unnecessary target.

She looked at Juston shivering before her. All he wore was a thin white T-shirt and ripped cargo pants. She had taken his vest and the remaining fabric to use in the splint, having nothing else for material.

Even with his vest gone, Juston's outfit had more material covering him than hers did. The cold wasn’t severe enough to be a real danger.

“...Wait here,” she finally conceded, drawing away from him toward the cliff’s ledge. “I will leave to gather wood to build us a small fire."

His feverish eyes widened. “No. Wait,” he said quickly, the words blurting out in a confused rush as he reached out to pull on her shirt, “I’ve ch-changed my mind. Don’t leave me. Please. I don’t want that th- _thing_ to come back."

She stared at him and narrowed her eyes, bewildered at his sudden change of attitude. “You do not want a fire,” she repeated tonelessly.

“N-No. I don’t care. D-Doesn’t matter,” he managed through chattering teeth, tugging the fabric of her shirt again in a pitiful gesture. “I don’t w-want for you to die out there and leave me here alone."

“I see.” She adjusts her position, settling into a crouch without ever dislodging his hand from its grip on her shirt. This is unfamiliar territory for her, but something in her is willing to oblige his request. “Then we will both wait here until you are rested enough to move.”

It isn’t optimal. The alcove is small, too cramped to get to a fighting position quickly if the time comes where she might need to, and the wind blows in as a reminder of the countless dangers awaiting them both outside. The rational part of her wants to leave him here to die. Her life does not depend on his continued survival, and even his continued survival does not depend on her acquiescence to his irrational, emotional requirements for comfort.

X-23 does not know why she stays with Juston, any more than she knows why the Sentinel is after him, or why he or any of the other children here are trapped together in Murderworld in the first place. Her rational mind cannot make sense of it. Nothing that has happened since she awoke lends itself to any rhyme or reason for being.

Maybe that’s why she doesn’t protest when they eventually end up huddled next to each another in the cramped space, his body curling unconsciously into hers the longer he sleeps—to be nearer to the other source of body heat, she supposes, and something else he seems to desperately crave from the contact. X-23 can’t sleep in such a vulnerable position, of course, but she waits for him all the same with her eyes open. She struggles to reconcile the threats awaiting them outside with the position she is currently in.

This is not optimal. It is scarcely even tolerable. But X-23 allows it all the same.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I know, I know, having two writing projects going on in November sort of defeats the purpose of NaNoWriMo completely. But, I just finished _Avengers Arena_ and couldn't help but think that such an incredible cast of characters was wasted on a premise where three-fourths of them have to die off by default in eighteen short issues.
> 
> So—how to rewrite the same cast in a setting where they don't have to die messily in a short amount of time, while giving them space for all the character development/relationships they rightfully deserve?
> 
> Yep. You guessed it. We're doing this as a soap opera.
> 
> (Probably going to be in the form of short flashfics whenever I get the inspiration. Don't take any of this too seriously.)


End file.
